


inheritance

by Noa



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:29:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noa/pseuds/Noa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You stare at your own reflection until the corners of your vision blur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	inheritance

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](http://sleiin.tumblr.com/image/58817478279) (absolutely perfect) artwork by tumblr user sleiin

Time had passed.

It slipped through your fingers without a warning, it drifted by on a breeze you didn’t feel until it was already gone. Your relationship to ticking clocks has never been a pleasant one; to you, they function as a constant reminder of your own incapability. A post-it the universe had rudely stuck to your forehead, so that every time you looked into a mirror, you saw missed chances, instead of your own amber eyes. You saw a person stuck in a day and age, where the things he had been given no longer had a meaning. What once had been a rebellion, was now reduced to remnants, displayed only to accentuate the fact that they are nothing more than that- remnants. Ruins. Graves.

It’s a quiet day. All your days are quiet. You’re seated on the edge of your unmade bed, staring into the empty, humid air. Over the sound of your own heartbeat, you hear the wind pushing waves into the ocean. A few seagulls shriek in the distance, and you listen, knowing they’ll be gone again soon, as there’s nothing to be found for them here. There’s nothing to be found for anyone, here. There is just waiting. Passing time.

You’ve exhausted the distractions your mind has been able to come up with throughout the years. You know every letter of history you’ve managed to save from the Batterwitch’s censorship. You’ve seen the waters that surround you, swam as deep as your lungs allowed you to dive. The taste of salt is easy to reproduce when you focus, but you don’t. Rather, your attention is shattered, fragmented across a plethora of experiences, to prevent yourself from pausing at a single thought long enough to start feeling. The line between efficiency and survival has never been that well-defined to you.

You look down at your hands. The undone cuffs of a crisp white dress shirt wrap loosely around your wrists. You inspect the small buttons stitched onto the fabric; your fingertips brush past them, underneath the narrow black tie, from your abdomen to your chest, to find that two of the buttons had been reattached at least once. Folded over your left arm is a charcoal black suit jacket, and you set it aside to button up the cuffs of the shirt.

There’s no hesitation in your movements, though you can’t help but question what it is that drives you to do this. What are you hoping to gain from playing dress-up in clothes small enough to fit, yet big enough to drape. Clothes that aren’t yours. Nothing you inherited is really yours. Sometimes, you even doubt the claim you have on the name Strider.

You stand up, and tuck the shirt in. The slacks you’re wearing are bunched up around the belt a bit more than they should be, yet the length is close to perfect. This startles you a little- Living alone, you’ve never seen the point of tracking your own height. There was no one to draw a pencil line on the wall, right above a hand resting gently on your head. There was no one you could aspire to be on eye level with. No one to look in the eye, now that you were.

You step in front of the tall mirror glued to the side of your wardrobe, and face yourself instead.

It’s not until you slip on the jacket, that you feel strangely out of place. The heavier fabric hangs from your shoulders, flows around you like the ghost of an embrace, and as you adjust the lapels you realize that you’ve not felt this guilty, nor this lonely, ever before in your life.

You stare at your own reflection until the corners of your vision blur. When you blink, you’re almost certain you see a flash of his likeness in the person staring back at you. You consider removing your shades, then reconsider, and opt against it. You can try to mirror his image all you want, but you aren’t him. You’ll never be him. Your eyes sting.

You wonder if she buried your brother’s body.

-fin

 


End file.
